Why I like my Galaxy Note

I own a Galaxy Note, have done for about 15 months now. And it's an unusual phone for many. In fact for many it's not really quite a phone. "That's a phone?!" is an exclamation I hear somewhat frequently. Though given we're now looking at the launch of the Note III next month it's a surprise that's slowly declining. I've been asked a few times what I like about the Note, and normally it's over twitter where 140 characters can't really do justice to a phone with with a screen nearly 140mm across. Firstly I guess I should cover why I have a Note over other phones. My brother was the first person I know with a Note, and at first my mother and I mocked him Dom Joly style. But I quickly warmed to the idea of having a device that would still act as a phone, and fit comfortably in my pocket, while also being big enough to act as a tablet for media consumption. The stylus was quite appealing too for making "notes" on the go. Few months later and my contract on my HTC Wildfire ends and I'm on a Galaxy Note N7000. As a phone it works quite well. It could be a bit lighter, but it's not uncomfortable to hold and I frequently have half hour long conversations without bother. The huge battery (and I've now gotten an even larger battery recently) powers through the day quite fine, the screen is the big killer for the battery consuming around 40-50% of battery life. Somewhat hoping later models have improved upon this as it's a bit silly, though totally understandable. As a smartphone it's many times better than my Wildfire purely due to the size being a bit more functional, and with the higher specs and Android version I could do a fair bit more than my Note can do. Apps load faster, there's more in my streams to see at once, and with newer apps comes more functionality. The Jellybean update brought along multi-window, Samsungs own little Android trick and it only works on a handful of apps so it's pretty much all but useless for most apps. The Note launched with the function to have a hover window for videos which has been nice to have around. Watch Korra while browsing the latest tweets. Though certainly nothing I'd want to watch a full movie on. As a tablet it's pretty serviceable, though I am eyeing up the 2013 Nexus 7 as a potential buy. My main tablet-like use I have of my Note, at least something I couldn't really do on many other phones, is reading comics. The size of the screen is smaller than most physical comics, but it's crisp enough to easily read whole pages displayed at a time. I've tried reading books on it, but it doesn't really work that great just due to the screen type. Nice to have RPG books on it for reference though. I do read quite a few articles on it through BBC News, Feedly, and Pocket. I guess it's more a case of reading a book on the go isn't a huge habit I've got regardless of Note or paperback. My main issue with the phone, and this is because it's a Samsung more so than anything else, is the power button on the side of the phone. Quite frequently you'll hold the phone in a way that would be comfortable should it be a pad of paper or similar and the screen will then power off. When having others take pictures with my phone, or look at pictures, they also tend to hold the phone that turns off the screen. Which is a shame as sharing pictures for people to peruse through is a great use of the device. A big screen lets everyone gather around, something you couldn't really do on many other phones. The S-Pen has proven to be quite limited in function. It's mainly due to lag, which at least the Note II has improved and the Note III looks to have made a dream. In fact the Note III finally fixes a flaw all previous Note devices have which is the pen now works off the screen, it used to be that to open the menu or hit he back button you had to use your finger, which can break the flow somewhat. But the Note III the hardware buttons will work with the S-Pen. I find when making notes I want them to be a bit more permanent than my scrawls so have mostly shifted over to Google Keep and Drive. I do wish the handwriting recognition was more reliable and speedier though as there's many times (winter especially) where scrawling something would be much better than typing. So there's my Note stuff. Any queries? p.s Most of this was written on a PC. Bit of "on the go" editing on my Note though. Some of the articles on here and PXOD have been done on my Note though, it's quite nice to write up chunks of text big and small.